“Drop-off”, in the study of elections, means the share of voters who cast a ballot but don’t complete the ballot. For U.S. Senate, in November 2016, the California drop-off was 16.20%. In other words, almost one-sixth of the voters who cast a ballot didn’t bother to vote for U.S. Senate, which was the second item on the ballot, just after president.
This is undoubtedly because the November 2016 California ballot forced voters to either vote for one of two Democrats, or not to vote for U.S. Senate at all. This happened because of Proposition 14, the top-two system, which has been in effect in California since 2011.
The drop-out rate for U.S. Senate in California in the past 75 years has been:
2016 16.20%
2012 4.72%
2010 2.92%
2006 4.02%
2004 4.26%
2000 4.66%
1998 3.55%
1994 4.34%
1992 5.05%
1988 4.42%
1986 2.87%
1982 3.21%
1980 5.10%
1976 8.17%
1974 4.12%
1970 2.13%
1968 3.55%
1964 2.64%
1962 4.75%
1958 .95%
1956 3.36%
1954 4.19%
1952 12.81%
1950 4.15%
1946 4.35%
1944 7.33%
Years not mentioned above had no U.S. Senate election.
The USA Senate continues to be one of THE worst ANTI-Democracy legislative bodies in Western Civilization – due to the many below average SMALL States — ALL States having 8 or fewer USA Reps.
How long has CA been THE State with the largest population ???– i.e. getting screwed the worst in the USA gerrymander Senate.
Abolish it or elect it using P.R.
Response to usual morons — if and when each State supplies equal taxes to the Fed regime, then it will deserve to have equal Senators in the Fed regime.
History note — the USA regime BARELY survived having equal State stuff in 1775-1783 during the LONG and very deadly American Revolutionary War — many of the States did NOT pay their full quotas to support the USA Army and Navy.
It was ONLY MAJOR help from France – money, army, navy – that had the USA-France winning the final major battle at Yorktown, Va in Oct 1781 to defeat the EVIL rotted Brit monarchy/oligarchy — i.e. to get the 1783 USA-Brit Peace Treaty.
The small States and the slave States conspired in the 1787 top secret Fed Convention and got the 2 Senators per State stuff and other ANTI-Democracy stuff in the 1787 Const.
I wonder if there was an election that had a larger drop-off, 75 years seems to be where the data ends. Looking into the 1952 figure (12.81%) I saw that William F. Knowland ran for and received both the Republican & Democrat nominations and was only opposed by an Independent-Progressive. So it seems that a similar situation of voters not having satisfying choices led to the exact same outcome.
Thank you Top Two Primary (sarcasm).
The entirely open primary idea is intriguing, what would be better though is an open primary where the top vote-getter from each party gets a spot on the ballot (with a cutoff level set ~2%) That way people could vote for any person from any party in the primary and each party would still have representation on the ballot in November.
In 1940 the California US Senate race only had a Republican, a Communist, and a Prohibitionist. That election had a dropoff rate approximately like 2016’s.
Sad
The CA SOS will be having a supplement to the CA Statement of Vote around Feb 1, 2017 showing Prez math in the various gerrymander districts – USA Rep, CA Senate, CA Assembly — i.e. esp the drop off math in districts NOT having 1 D and 1 R.
I think part of Clinton’s overwhelming vote total in California (and thus the nation) is due to the fact that Republican voters had no one to vote for; Trump was going to lose the state anyway, no choice for US Senate (and no way to protest vote), no vote in many congressional and state offices either, so why bother going to the polls? I would love to see a study of how much “top two” skewed Clinton’s national vote total.
Sanchez received twice as many votes as Neither of These Candidates.
California should add a formal “Neither of These Candidates” (NOTC). If NOTC finishes 1st or 2nd and the top candidate does not receive a majority, cancel the results and hold a special election.
L.W. — see the actual turnout as a percent of the registered voters for the various Prez election years in the CA Statement of Vote.
D.R. Third highest percentage of eligible voters since the 26th Amendment. 2008 and 1984 were higher.
@Larry West: Good point — another demonstration that “the Presidential election” is really 51 different state elections (plus the territorial votes that don’t count for any EC votes), and that there are pitfalls awaiting any who think just changing to a “national popular vote” (under the scheme so named or otherwise), without more, would solve all our problems in that area.
J.R. — The many Nov 2016 CA *HOT* issue petitions have ANY effect on the turnout — esp. the marijuana item ???
i.e. need a mere super computer to do the precinct math on all major offices and statewide issues.
JALP – Rigged gerrymander USA Rep districts used in ME and NE for the Prez election
— i.e. could be a mere 538 gerrymander districts in 2020 if the State/DC hacks really rig the Electoral College —
— i.e. a larger version of the 435 gerrymander districts in 2016 for HACK USA Reps.
Sorry – each State has been and is a gerrymander AREA for Fed/USA elections since 1788.
P.R. and nonpartisan App.V.
Demo Rep, what do you think of the argument that Section 2 of the 14th Amendment — combined with the caselaw that diluting voting power is one way to deny the right to an effective vote — means states should allocate their Electoral College votes proportionally or be subject to losing US Representatives (and the associated EC votes) in proportion to the number of voters whose rights were denied?
Then check out my article on how to reform the elections at http://waunakeegan.weebly.com/waunakeegan-news.
D.R.
96.5% voted for President.
95.6% voted on Proposition 64.
If California put the ballot propositions first, I suspect that the participation would have been reversed.
Does the rest of the ballot count as voted? I assume drop off means just the unmarked proposition or office .